Truman Medal for Economic Policy will go to John B. Taylor, creator of the Taylor rule on interest rates
Stanford economist John B. Taylor, whose namesake “rule” for setting interest rates is a center of many monetary policy debates, will be the sixth person to receive the Truman Medal for Economic Policy.
The medal honors President Harry S. Truman for his role in creating the nation’s Council of Economic Advisers, which helps the president guide policy. Past medal winners include former Federal Reserve chairmen Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker.
Taylor served as senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers during the Ford and Carter administrations and was a member of the council in the George H.W. Bush administration. He has written extensively about the economy and policy.
He is best known for the Taylor rule. It is an equation intended to help central banks, like the Federal Reserve, set interest rate policies. The Fed has held its benchmark federal funds interest rate near zero since late 2008 and is expected to raise the rate perhaps this month or in December.
Taylor recently argued on CNBC that the Fed needs to be raising interest rates.
Former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke recently wrote about why he disagreed with “a number of John’s (Taylor’s) claims.”
Taylor will receive the award at a luncheon Oct. 14 at the InterContinental Kansas City at the Plaza. Tickets cost $125 and are available online and from the Economic Club of Kansas City at 816-810-9953 or the Harry S. Truman Library Institute at 816-268-8245.
Others to receive the award were George P. Shultz, Allan Meltzer and Alice Rivlin. The award is sponsored by the Truman Library Institute, the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the Economic Club of Kansas City and the Missouri Council on Economic Education.
This story was originally published September 1, 2015 at 2:26 PM with the headline "Truman Medal for Economic Policy will go to John B. Taylor, creator of the Taylor rule on interest rates."